Chicken Farmer

Had a friend telling me about a chicken farmer in Ohio that lost 2 million chicken and a couple thousand turkeys to deasese from a bird. They were putting them into compost rows 16' wide 8' high and 600 feet long after they were run through a grinder. He said they used 550 semi dump trucks full of mulch to cover them and then run a sprinkling line over each row to keep them moist to get up to temperature them cover that with bark mulch. He didn't say who was standing all the lose.

I don't know what their rules are but here, by law, they have to kill everything within 5 miles of the infected farm. The reason they don't let it run it's course is in a commercial environment the birds can't handle the flu. I'd say the farmer would probably lose 90% of the birds on the farm. So instead of allowing them to die, they smother them with foam and compost them in the house. This is what was happening with the burying them in windrows. If the windrow is done correctly, the internal temperature should get high enough to kill the virus. After that they'll probably spread the litter on hay fields or pastures and put new shavings in the houses.

As for the loss, it depends. We are constantly reminded of biosecurity practices. We're supposed to have specific clothes, shoes, hats, coats, etc that we only wear to the chicken house. We also have powdered bleach at the door of every house that we step in before entering. If it's proven that the farmer didn't follow the biosecurity protocol, they're at fault. If it's proven that the virus came from the hatchery or hen farm then the integrator takes the majority of loss in payment to the farm and the farmer draws from lost payment insurance if they have it. There was an occurrence a few years ago where a farmer went duck hunting, came back and went to check on his chickens without changing shoes. Just so happened he stepped in some infected duck poo somewhere and tracked it into his houses. In some cases, for instance if the farmer stepped in infected poo on the way into the house but was following protocol, then they're held slightly less accountable. But in that case, the farmer knew he'd been duck hunting and knew he was still wearing the same shoes. He didn't make the effort to follow protocol so he was fully responsible. Chickens in chicken houses can't handle bird flu like wild birds. Wild birds have been exposed to many different things that commercial birds haven't been. Very similar to humans. Someone who has been stuck in their house for an extended amount of time is less capable of fighting off diseases than someone whose been exposed all along by being around people

Smells like money to me